by Jackie Braun
Her breathing was no more even than his when she scooted out from beneath his solid body and stood.
“Whales.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Right.”
CHAPTER TEN
MARNIE sat on the beach in La Playa de la Pisada a week later, watching the waves heave against the shore. She felt that way, too: Restless and on edge.
And yet not ready to move on.
Only a couple of days remained of her time in Mexico. It had gone by so quickly with all she and J.T. had packed into the past week. In fact, just the day before they’d traveled to Ensenada again, where they’d visited la Punta Banda Peninsula on the Bay of Todos Los Santas. They’d stood near La Bufadora and let the spray from the marine geyser rain down on them.
Still laughing and soaked to the skin, they’d eaten at an outdoor café in town, warmed by the sun and each other’s company. Marnie had paid for their meal. She’d insisted. He’d been far too generous with her already, always surprising her with a trinket or souvenir from the places they stopped. It had been dark when they’d returned to La Playa de la Pisada. They’d said good-night at her door, both exhausted from another day of sightseeing and heightened sexual tension.
But as quickly as the week had flown, Marnie felt as if she had been gone forever. She’d spoken to her mother just that morning during a trip into town to pick up something special for dessert. She wanted to surprise J.T. that evening, celebrate…something.
“You’ve been gone a long time.”
It hadn’t been a criticism, but she’d heard worry in her mother’s voice. As a parent herself, she recognized it easily enough and so she apologized for being the cause.
“I’ve met someone,” she added afterward.
She hadn’t intended to say anything to her parents about J.T. She might be in her thirties, but parents were parents whatever their offspring’s age. And talk about handing them a reason for concern.
Sure enough, her mother’s tone was now tinged with alarm.
“Someone from there?” she asked, sounding as if Marnie had called to say she wouldn’t be returning at all and to ask that her belongings be shipped south of the border post haste.
“No, although he does own a place here on the peninsula. He’s American, Mom. He’s…nice.”
“Marnie—”
But she’d cut off her mother’s words, knowing she wouldn’t like what the older woman had to say on the subject and wishing she’d kept this information to herself.
“I’m not going to run away with him or anything, Mother. Promise. It’s just a harmless holiday flirtation. That’s all it is.”
And, for a moment, she almost wished that were the case. How much easier it would be to accept his lifestyle then. How much easier it would be to walk away at the end of her time in Mexico.
Her mother was silent for a long moment, presumably gathering her thoughts. Marnie gave the older woman high marks for changing the subject when she spoke again. Were the roles reversed, she knew she wouldn’t have let it drop quite so easily.
“Noah’s missed you.”
Marnie felt her heart squeeze at the mention of her son. She’d never been away from him for more than a night before this.
“No more than I’ve missed him,” she said as her vision blurred. “Give him and Dad a hug for me. I’ll see you all on Sunday.”
“Marnie?”
“Yes.”
“Take care.”
“Always.”
“Don’t do something you’ll…regret.”
Sifting a handful of sand between her fingers, Marnie replayed the conversation in her head now as she sat on the beach. Too late, she thought. She already had plenty of regrets when it came to J.T. And, interestingly enough, almost of all them pertained to what the pair of them had managed not to do together.
A seabird screamed overhead, swooping low before soaring back up into the darkening sky. As Marnie watched it, she mused that the one thing she didn’t regret was revealing her long-dormant dream to J.T.
On the long drive back from whale watching in Guerrero Negro nearly a week ago, they’d discussed her plans for Marnie’s Closet at length. He was an excellent sounding board, she’d discovered, full of marketing strategies and advice on ways to get the most out of her initial investment. Indeed, he seemed to possess incredible business acumen. And it had zapped her again, that sizzle of attraction for the intelligent, interesting man God had so thoughtfully tucked inside that hunky exterior. Talk about the complete package.
Gazing out at the horizon, she noted storm clouds were rolling in. Fat and dark, they would soon blot out what little sunshine remained. In the distance, she thought she saw a stab of lightning and sighed, resigned. The electricity had finally come back on in her rental the day before and she knew without a doubt the storm would take it out again once it broke shore. She’d spent so much of her time with J.T. and at his home it really didn’t matter, she supposed.
The slamming of a car door startled her and she glanced across the beach in time to see a suit-clad man alight from a dark-colored sedan.
Who is that?
J.T. hadn’t received a single visitor the entire time she’d been in La Playa de la Pisada, and even if he had, this absurdly buttoned-up newcomer would have struck her as a fish out of water. Clearly he wasn’t here on vacation and his neatly trimmed auburn hair and pale skin told her he wasn’t a local. Indeed, everything about him seemed to scream uptight American businessman, the sort that didn’t take vacations because they didn’t have a life outside their jobs.
As she watched him, he marched to the door of J.T.’s bungalow in his shiny black wingtips and, without bothering to knock, yanked it open and stepped inside.
That capped it for Marnie. Curiosity fully aroused, she stood, shook the sand out of her towel and secured it around her hips over her bathing suit. She’d just go over and have a little look-see. She needed to firm up their plans for dinner anyway, she told herself when her conscience protested that she should mind her own business and give J.T. time alone with his unexpected guest.
She’d barely taken a dozen steps when she heard shouting and decided this was no time for a self-proclaimed busybody to show restraint.
“Dammit, J.T.! You can’t hide away here forever. The Justice Department is building a case and that fact isn’t going to disappear just because you have for the past several weeks. Legal is up to its eyeballs in this mess and has been since before you decided to extend your stay in Mexico,” the mystery man thundered.
Whoever he was, he certainly had nerve. And what was this business about the Justice Department? Did J.T. do work for them?
“I don’t need your permission to take a vacation, Rick.”
J.T.’s voice was quiet in comparison to his guest’s and all the more lethal because of its low pitch. She’d never heard him sound so angry, even when they’d first met and he’d peppered her with questions about who she was and her motives for coming to town.
“I didn’t say you did, but it’s not like you to ignore repeated e-mails and faxes,” the other man said.
Marnie peaked through the window as he spoke and noticed from his profile that his face was nearly the color of merlot. Did men in their thirties have strokes? she wondered absently. He seemed well on his way to major health problems with his Type A personality.
He was about J.T.’s age, although not quite as tall, and he might have been good looking if his face weren’t quite so pinched, his auburn hair quite so perfectly clipped and gelled into place.
Takes life too seriously, was her first impression. Then: He needs to have a woman run her fingers through that hair until it’s good and unruly.
He wasn’t another bounty hunter. That much seemed clear. And the conversation she’d overheard had her baffled, what with talk of the Justice Department and a case being built.
“I’ve been busy,” J.T. snarled.
“You can’t afford to be too busy righ
t now, my friend.”
The man J.T. had called Rick turned then and caught sight of Marnie through the window.
“I believe you have company,” he told J.T. as he opened the door to let her in.
Marnie swore J.T. paled when he saw her. But he smiled and held out a hand, bringing her to his side.
“Hello. We didn’t see you there.”
Her gaze drifted from one man to the other as the tension snapped in the small kitchen like a live electrical wire.
“Just came over to see about our plans for this evening, but I can come back later. I seem to be interrupting something.”
“Nothing that can’t wait,” J.T. said succinctly, to which the other man scowled.
An awkward silence ensued, and Marnie realized J.T. didn’t intend to introduce the pair of them. So she offered a hand. “I’m Marnie LaRue, by the way. I’ve rented the place just up the beach from here.”
“Richard Danton. I work—”
“Rick was just leaving,” J.T. interrupted.
Rick held J.T.’s icy glare for a moment before snagging his briefcase off the counter. She assumed the man had driven down from California—the plates on his car told her as much—and yet he hadn’t even bothered to loosen his tie or unfasten the top button of the snowy shirt he wore. If the air-conditioning in his automobile gave out, she had little doubt he would suffer heat stroke before shrugging out of his charcoal gray suit coat.
“At least look over the papers and get back to me by the end of the week.” After a glance at Marnie, Rick added meaningfully, “And make this your top priority, please.”
“Don’t presume to tell me how to do my job.” J.T.’s voice was as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel.
Rick shook his head, seeming piqued and defeated at the same time.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
On the wall next to him was a small photograph Marnie knew J.T.’s sister, Anne, had taken. The frame was slightly askew. Rick pushed it back into alignment with the tip of his index finger, the gesture seeming almost one of reverence.
Without looking at J.T., he added quietly, “I know my place.”
He walked out the door then, which J.T. slammed behind him. Marnie waited until the car was gone from view before she said a word.
“Everything okay?”
J.T. stalked to the window in the main living area, feet planted shoulder-width apart as he stood with his back to her and gazed out at the churning ocean.
“Define okay,” he snorted.
His mood didn’t appear to have improved any with Rick Danton’s departure.
“Oh, ‘within tolerance,’ as my dad would say.”
“Ah, then I suppose so.” He turned slowly, his expression grim. “I can’t stay here much longer, Marnie. I’ve got to get back to work.”
Questions, dozens of them, beckoned, but she decided to ignore them for the time being.
“I know. Me, too.” She tried to smile. “We both knew Mexico wasn’t forever.”
“Did we?” he asked quietly.
She felt the air back up in her lungs. “Didn’t we?”
“Rick’s a…lawyer I work with. He was just here reminding me of some important developments back home.”
“Duty calls?”
“Something like that.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I feel I owe you an explanation about what I do for a living. I haven’t been completely truthful with you.”
Curious as she was, Marnie suddenly didn’t want to know, because something in his solemn expression told her it was something more than just chasing bail jumpers, maybe something even more dangerous.
“I haven’t asked for an explanation.”
“No, you haven’t.” He walked toward her, stopping just shy of touching her. “You’ve taken me at face value. I don’t know that you’ll ever understand what that’s meant to me.”
Blissful as she decided ignorance could be, she had to know this much, “Are you in trouble with the law?”
He shook his head. “Not how you mean. It’s a long story.”
“But you do have something to hide.”
“Nothing bad. Nothing I’m ashamed of, I can promise you that.”
He reached for her hands, held them loosely in his, but his gaze was direct, his tone urgent when he said, “You once asked me who I was and I told you, ‘Just a man.’ That’s who I am, Marnie. At the very heart of it and no matter what you discover about me later on, please remember I’m just a man.”
His words should have frightened her, should have made her pull away. But Marnie didn’t want to pull away. In fact, she discovered what she really wanted to do was hold on. And she knew why. It hit her with all of the force of the storm gathering outside. She loved him.
“You’ll never be just a man to me,” she whispered, rising on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“Aw, Marnie.”
He held her tightly against him as if she were a lifeline that had been tossed in to save him. Some of the tension seemed to ebb from his frame, but it flooded back when he spoke again.
“I’m leaving in the morning.”
He didn’t speak of the days that would come after that, or of what place she would have in his life in the future. Once—was it just days ago?—J.T. had told her he would have come after her when she tried to leave Mexico the first time. He didn’t say any such thing now.
And even though she loved him, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.
Here, they could be Marnie and J.T. But back in the States—back in the real world where work obligations and family responsibilities beckoned—they would be two entirely different people, living on opposite sides of the country, pursuing different goals. It seemed doubtful their lives could fit together so seamlessly then.
Even if the matter of logistics could be solved, Marnie was a small-town single mother determined to build a business and establish financial security for her son. How could she make a life with a man who traveled the globe not to mention who came with so many secrets? And, of course, she had kept a secret of her own: Noah.
She had no idea how J.T. would feel about her son or about her being a mother. A lot of men didn’t want the baggage that came with an instant family. Perhaps, she admitted, that hadn’t been her only reason for not mentioning Noah. Like J.T., she had enjoyed being just a woman. But she knew better than anyone that such a simplified fantasy could not last.
And she had a feeling she wasn’t the only one having second thoughts. Already, something about J.T. had changed. He seemed resigned, weary, even a little remote. Was he already pulling back, stepping away from her?
Marnie felt her heart break even as she reached her decision. Her life was in Chance Harbor with her son. Noah would always come first. But for tonight, for just this one night, as much as she abhorred risk, she would gamble more than the heart she had already lost to J.T.
“I’ll be leaving tomorrow, too.” She reached for his hand and started back through the small house. At his bedroom door he tugged her to a stop.
“Marnie?”
She laid a finger to his lips. “Let’s make the most of tonight.”
They made love as the storm built outside, its vengeful fists pounding on the roof and rattling the windows, and the intensity of their emotions matched the raging weather. Hours later, once the storm had passed and the thunder echoed low in the distance, they made love again. It was this slow and sweet goodbye Marnie knew she would remember forever.
She woke before daylight wrapped in J.T.’s strong arms, with her body fitted snugly, intimately against his big warm one. She wanted to stay there, wanted it so badly that she made herself scoot out of his embrace. Then she dressed and slipped from the room.
Was she making the right decision? It hurt so much to leave, she decided it must be.
After Hal’s death, she had been consumed with anxiety, most of it irrational. She’d worried about everyone she loved, fretting over Mason and Rose’s safety when they were in the state
capital while the Legislature was in session; checking on Noah countless times during the night until she’d become a walking zombie.
She could look back now and admit such worrying was excessive and in direct relation to the loss she’d suffered. But she felt it bubbling back to the surface now. And with J.T., the reasons seemed valid enough. She couldn’t live like this. Call her a fool, call her spineless, she couldn’t wake up each day wondering if he would come home to her that night.
In his kitchen, she found a piece of scrap paper and pen.
What words were there to write? she wondered dimly. She started with the ones she’d wanted to say last night, the three words that had pitched and hurled about inside her head while he’d undressed her and then followed her down onto the soft mattress of his bed.
I love you.
She followed that declaration with the infamous conjunction:
But I don’t expect anything more from you than what we shared last night. We’re different people, with different goals and different needs, but I’ll never regret my time with you in Mexico.
Things here were simple. You were, as you said, just a man. And I got to be just a woman. But that’s not all that I am. You asked me who I was when we met and I never really told you. Not all of it. I’m not just a widow. I’m also a mother. I have a son, J.T., a four-year-old boy who depends on me for everything. I’ve been away too long already, but it felt so good to be here, so good to clear my head and dream again.
I’m going to start my business. Thank you for all of your advice and encouragement. I’d forgotten how to want things for myself over the past few years, how to take risks. But ultimately what I want and what I’m willing to risk are subordinate to what my son needs from me: Stability.
He needs to know I will be there for him physically and emotionally. I cannot do that if I am consumed by worry for you.
I wish you the best always. Please stay safe.
Love, Marnie
She left the note on the kitchen table propped up on the seashells she’d collected during their many walks, and she slipped out the door as the sun scaled the horizon in the east to bathe the beach in its pale golden light.